A conversation with Ismail Merchant and James Ivory

with Ismail Merchant and James Ivory
in Movies, TV & Theater
on Wednesday, September 11, 1996 * * * * *

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Ismail Merchant and James Ivory discuss their 35-year partnership in film production and their film starring Anthony Hopkins, "Surviving Picasso".

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Keywords:
Surviving Picasso
James Ivory
Francoise Gilot
Picasso
film producers
Anthony Hopkins
Merchant and Ivory
Jefferson in Paris
Ismail Merchant

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    1. robertg  06/20/2010 09:52 PM Report

      John Richardson, Picasso's great biographer, wrote a great takedown of this film in the New York Review of Books. "Will we understand Picasso's genius from this film?" Charlie asks. "Of course, without question!" Doesn't one need to see Picasso's paintings in order to even begin understanding his genius?

      This film is clearly based on Francois Gilot's memoir, and the filmmakers' denial of this fact is pure legalese: Gilot refused to sell the rights to her memoir or cooperate in the making of this vulgar, anti-modernist film. Arianna Huffington's book on Picasso was a similarly ill-informed (for example, she claims Picasso learned how to sculpt in 1929, but he had already invented constructive sculpture in 1912), single-mindedly feminist attack on the greatest artist of the 20th century. Yes, Picasso was a misogynist, but that is hardly the most important thing about him. He was singularly committed to his art, and this film (astonishingly) thinks second-rate imitations can convey Picasso's accomplishment.